A RECENT report that “by all accounts,” the Rangers last week offered Brian Leetch a multi-year contract worth more than $7 million per, most certainly did not include the most important account of all.

That from the captain himself.

“No, that’s not accurate,” Leetch told Slap Shots on Friday when asked to verify the number. “And neither was the first [$6M] number that came out in December.”

Leetch, eligible to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, has steadfastly refused to discuss agent Jay Grossman’s negotiations with the Rangers in anything other than the most general terms. Neither he nor Grossman has ever even hinted at what the defenseman is seeking.

Since the first day of training camp, Leetch consistently has said only that he understands his bargaining position, that he wouldn’t sign a contract with a team that might acquire him in a trade, and that he wants to remain in New York.

As far as we know, Leetch has not countered Ranger offers – whatever they actually have been – with proposals of his own. That’s both a negotiating strategy and a PR one, as well. According to an individual who knows Leetch well, the captain has always been aware of the possibility of leaks and spins on the process from the Ranger front office. Leetch, who values his privacy anyway, has long believed that the less said about the negotiations, the better.

Now, in the midst of a desperate stretch run for the playoffs, a number that obviously did not come from the Leetch camp has made its way into print – an inaccurate number, no less.

Maybe management believed that getting the offer of $7M-plus-per into the public arena would make the organization look good. Rest assured, however, that this will do no good in getting Leetch’s signature on another Ranger contract; no good, at all. *CAN we agree by acclamation to make Detroit-Colorado the Stanley Cup Finals, and just dispense with the formality of the rest of the tournament?

We offer apologies to an extremely good Dallas team that’s going wire-to-wire for first overall. And to a nice, entertaining Ottawa team and the intriguing outfit at the Meadowlands.

But the truth is that after that prospective second-round Red Wing-Avalanche Western Conference series, everything and anything that may follow is guaranteed to be an anti-climax.

The Red Wings by adding on deadline day Chris Chelios, Ulf Samuelsson and Wendel Clark, and the Avalanche by previously adding Theo Fleury, aren’t just hockey teams anymore.

They’re more like multi-national trusts, immune to standardsthat cover the common folk. *MEANWHILE, the trade deadline comes far too late in the season. With the availability of so many rentals, not only can teams completely make themselves over for the final dozen games of an 82-match season, the late deadline – and the attending rumors and uncertainty surrounding it – clearly creates a distraction at the most inopportune time of the season.

The deadline should be moved back to the end of February, when most teams have played 60 – not 70 -games. THE MOST disturbing trend of the season is the dramatic increase across the league in blocked shots. Who wants to watch a game in which at least one-third of the shots attempted never even reach the net? Because of the advances in equipment, just about everyone goes down, now. Because the players keep getting bigger and the ice surface remains the same size, the open ice is shrinking. Because coaches have these players clog the middle and play inside out, there are no lanes to the net. Something is going to have to be done.

We will never argue against hockey being a great game. And the games this year have been better than the games last year. There are fewer teams trapping. There is more flow and more play in the offensive zone. But the NHL is going have to find a way to marry the ever-increasing size of its players and coaching techniques with its ultimate responsibility to provide entertainment to the paying customers.

Third jerseys do not sell the game. Goal-scoring and acrobatic goaltending do. *THEN-slumping Brendan Shanahan met with Scotty Bowman a week before the trade deadline, Slap Shots has been told by an informed source. “There was a very vocal exchange of opinions,” we were told. “But it was a very positive meeting.”

When the playoffs end, win again or lose, Detroit is almost certain to use Shanahan – eligible to become an unrestricted free agent a year from now – as barter in an attempt to get back one of the first-rounders traded away in the Chelios deal.

And when the playoffs end, win or lose, Colorado is almost certain to use Claude Lemieux – eligible as well for Group III next summer – in the same manner.

We bet one or the other wears a Ranger uniform next season.

If the Flyers were interested in Samuelsson, as Bob Clarke told Neil Smith they were when the Ranger GM called early on deadline day, why didn’t the Flyer GM call Smith again as 3:00 approached? And failing that, why wouldn’t Smith have called back to find out what the Flyers were willing to offer?

By the way, when Clarke last week told the Philadelphia media that he wouldn’t be bringing Steve Duchesne back to Philly, that was the exact moment you knew that he was.

The NHL talks a good game when it comes to tampering, but when GMs such as Brian Burke, Glen Sather and Mike Smith openly name players on other teams they’d like to have in trades, the league looks away.

It sure doesn’t look away, however, when a coach or GM offers honest criticism of officiating or the schedule. *TOPIC for today: Petr Sykora. Is he the most skilled player in Devils history?